1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer implemented meeting planning and scheduling and, more particularly, to a tool for planning, scheduling, and tracking the state of meetings.
2. Description of the Related Art
The process of planning, scheduling, and holding meetings generally includes many steps that may be prone to human errors. For instance, a meeting organizer may forget to schedule the meeting location. A meeting coordinator may misplace meeting related documents, conference call telephone numbers, or long distance access codes. Additionally, the meeting coordinator may forget to remind meeting participants about the meeting or may even forget to attend the meeting himself due to distractions just prior to the meeting. Such errors often result in significant loss of productivity and efficiency. For example, meetings may have to be rescheduled due to lack of attendance or lack of meeting materials, equipment (such as slide or video projectors), or even due to a lack of an available meeting location. Determining the availability of meeting participants may be difficult and/or time consuming. Traditionally, a meeting coordinator must contact each meeting participant to determine that participant's availability during a proposed meeting time and may have to contact each participant multiple times before finding a time during which all meeting participant's are available. Similarly, determining the best method of contacting each meeting participant, either to invite them to a meeting, or to coordinate the scheduling of a meeting can be frustrating and time consuming. For instance, a meeting coordinator may attempt to reach a person via several different communication mechanisms (office phone, email, instant messenger, cell phone, etc) before actually reaching them. Increasingly, meeting planning and scheduling errors may cause third parties, such as current and potential clients, to lose confidence in an organizations ability.